Russia’s Ruselectronics Develops Bird Tracking System for Airport Safety

The ornithological safety system of the Ruselectronics holding has confirmed its effectiveness during testing at Pulkovo International Airport.

The ORNI complex allows you to track the flights of birds at a distance of up to 20 km, determine the direction, height and speed of their movement, as well as automatically turn on the deterrents installed at the airfield.

Testing of the ORNI complex at Pulkovo Airport took more than a year. During the operation, the system detected birds with high accuracy under any weather conditions, the locator functioned within the established range.

Testing also confirmed that the ORNI system does not interfere with the radio equipment of landing systems and does not emit radiation. Its use did not affect the operation of ground-based radio-technical flight support.

“The main advantage of ORNI is continuous round-the-clock monitoring at a great distance. The developers were faced with the task of linking the system with the means of scaring away birds and fixing the movements of birds in the airfield area. Now the system allows you to fix the number of birds and the direction of their movement in the selected range and automatically turns on the means of scaring away, for example, bioacoustic systems,” said Oleg Madurov, director for transport and operation of the airfield at the Northern Capital Gateway company, which manages Pulkovo airport.

The ORNI complex was developed by JSC Research Institute Vector of the Ruselectronics holding. It includes a subsystem for radar detection and tracking, equipped with passive coherent radars that do not interfere with the radio equipment of the airport.

“According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, more than 5,000 bird strikes occur annually in the world. In almost half of the cases, birds get into the engine, after which the plane has to return to the airport. The use of the ORNI complex helps prevent such incidents. Pulkovo services have confirmed the effectiveness of our development, and we are ready for further scaling of the project,” said Andrey Sorokin, Business Development Director of Vector Research Institute JSC.